Trivia / The Mysterious Cities of Gold

• Creator Cameo: Which turned into an extended role. Howard Rysphan, the director and head scriptwriter of the English dub, auditioned for Mendoza purely on a whim and was stunned when the producers in France and the UK picked him.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • In the Japanese version of the '80s series, both Esteban and Tao are voiced by women; Esteban's seiyuu (in both the original 1982 dub and the 1998 redub) is none other than Masako Nozawa. Tao was originally played by Junko Hori and Darrin'd by Motoko Kumai in the '90s redub.
  • Esteban's first French voice was Belgian voice actress Jackie Berger.
• Development Hell: The sequel series slipped into this for quite some time, being pushed back repeatedly until the first episode finally aired at the end of 2012. On the plus side, the sequel premiere fit with the original show's thirtieth anniversary.
  • Season 3 isn't as an extreme of an example, but it still took four years to air, finally premiering on October 20, 2016.
• Dueling Dubs: The original series, in Japanese. When the series was to be rerun on an NHK satellite channel in 1998, it was found that the original Japanese dialogue track was lost, presumably deleted because of the show's lack of popularity in Japan. Thus the series had to be redubbed into Japanese from French, and the new dub utilized an almost entirely new stable of voice actors, with Masako Nozawa (Esteban) the only returning seiyuu. For example, the new voice of Zia was Rei Sakuma (Shampoo of Ranma ½), replacing Mami Koyama (the original Minky Momo).
• Feelies: The regular box set comes with a collector's booklet including official art, character synopses and episode synopses. The Deluxe Edition comes with an additional historical facts booklet, a double-sided poster including a map of the route taken by the protagonists, and six postcards of differing art between release regions.
• Foreign Dub as Basis: TMCoG was originally broadcast in Japanese. When the series was scheduled to be re-run on the NHK channel, it was discovered that the original Japanese audio track was missing. Thus, the series had to be re-dubbed in Japanese from the French-language script.
• He Also Did: The series uses many of the same animation staff as The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, made originally in 1980 and also aired on NHK and Radio-Canada. Zia's original seiyuu, Mami Koyama, had played Nils in that series.
  • At the same time, Studio Pierrot was also making Urusei Yatsura and Miss Machiko and was about to debut Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel, all of which couldn't be more different from The Mysterious Cities of Gold. The studio wouldn't stay in that World Masterpiece Theater-esque literary-anime genre much longer, despite their adaptation of Mrs Pepperpot also debuting on NHK while Cities was still airing.
  • In the first Japanese version, Lana is voiced by Mieko Nobusawa. The same actress had played another character named Lana - the female protagonist of another NHK series, Future Boy Conan - four years earlier. The two characters even look somewhat similar as both wear their dark hair in twin pigtails.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: Not exactly, but some of the music cues sound similar to those from He-Man. It's justified since the music was done by the same people: Haim Saban (yes, that Saban) and Shuki Levy.
• International Coproduction: Between DiC Entertainment, NHK, Studio Pierrot, and RTL Luxembourg, with the English dub being co-produced with both Nickelodeon and The BBC.
• No Export for You: The soundtracks and postcards.
  • Do you live in the US and you want to watch the 2nd season? Better find a way to play British DVDs.
  • Season 4 was hit the worst by this: it was produced in late 2020, right at the height of a certain pandemic. As a result, this season was never dubbed into English.
  • The Season 1 English dub was recorded in Montreal, but was never broadcast in Canada. The English voice actors for both Esteban and Zia have recalled being unable to watch the English dub until they traveled internationally. Years later, Janice Chaikelson (Zia) had to purchase a bootleg set of the English dubbed episodes in order to show her kids the series (this was before the show had an official DVD release in English).
• The Other Darrin: Season 2 sport a new cast, since the series was made 30 years later.
  • In Japanese, it applies to every character in the original series except Esteban. When the show was to be released on DVD in Japan in the late 1990s, the original 1982 dialogue track had been lost; thus, for the home video release and rebroadcast on NHK's BS2 channel, the show had to be redubbed from French back into Japanese, using an entirely new stable of seiyuu except for Masako Nozawa (Esteban). A few episodes from the original dub (presumably taped off TV) do survive and can be watched on YouTube.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Shiraz Adam, the VA for Esteban, was a huge fan of the show back when it was popular in Montreal (in French on Radio-Canada) according to a DVD interview. Slightly subverted in his case because he didn't see it for another few years when he visited his cousins in the UK (despite being dubbed in Canada, the English dub was only ever screened in the UK and the US).
  • Similarly, Janice Chaikelson (Zia) only got to watch the English dub on Nickelodeon while visiting relatives in Florida. She recalled the show was not popular in English Canada due to only being released there in French.
  • In terms of keeping the show alive, honorable mention should go to fan Tim Skutt who gets a well-deserved interview on the DVD release. Years before an official English DVD release, this guy did a one-man fandub of the entire 39 episode series using the Japanese and French DVDs, taking the sound from his original home VHS recordings of the Nickelodeon broadcast.
• Saved from Development Hell: The second season came nearly 30 years after the original run. They were many failed attempts before it finally succeeded.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Japanese score was considered for use for the French version but it wasn't used because the music didn't seem to have that adventurous feel that was expected.
  • The English version lacks a few tracks from its French counterpart due to them containing French lyrics.
  • The Japanese soundtrack was also considered for the English version and was discarded in favor of the French soundtrack, though the script would still have been based on the French version.
  • The English audio was originally recorded with both UK and US-based actors as tests, the final product uses Canadian actors as a result of both countries complaining about the American and British accents used in the other takes.

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